Magazine

Bournes Pond, like many of the Cape’s saltwater bays, is choking to death.

Nitrogen, largely from septic systems, fuels explosive growth in the Falmouth bay’s algae that then gobble up oxygen and block critical sunlight from eelgrass beds, the primary habitat for coastal shellfish and fish. In the neighboring bays, Green and Great ponds, there are no eelgrass beds left at all.